The biggest âa-ha!â moment during a recently held roundtable on advancing equality in biopharma may have come by way of the live polling.
Only 20% of the 10 or so drugmakers and CROs attending the roundtable said their corporate plans around diversity and inclusion were specific and intentional. Another 44% said they didnât know if succession plans were in place for their top-performing leaders who are women of color.
On one hand, given longstanding issues of female underrepresentation among the industryâs upper echelons, these findings did not come as a surprise. On the other, the poll results were âastonishing,â as they demonstrated just how far industry has to go to achieve proper representation within its ranks, said Charlotte Jones-Burton, MD, founder of non-profit Women of Color in Pharma (WOCIP), which organized the event.